If you're even half-way good looking, going topless in public is bound to cause a stir. Today's Nice Price or Crack Pipe custom Monte Carlo is both damn-fine and topless, but will its price leave you unstirred?

The personal coupe is a category of car that seems to have fallen out of favor. That wasn't always the case, and in fact the sixties and seventies were perhaps the golden age of the breed. Far more than just two door edition of the sedans upon which they were typically based, the personal coupe offered a level of style and swagger not usually found in their more family friendly siblings.

Back at the dawn of the seventies General Motors offered a slew of sexy two-doors, giving each brand in its stable at least one. From the F-body twins, Camaro and Firebird, all the way up to the massive presence of the Eldorado, Toronado, and Riviera, GM had a personal coupe to fit almost any size and budget. And, right in the middle were the G-bodies - the Pontiac Grand Prix and smaller Chevrolet Monte Carlo.

Chevy's Monte Carlo derived its name from the tony city on the French Riviera. Draped in elegant long hood/short deck bodywork featuring subtle pontoon fenders and a coke bottle waist, the Chevelle-based coupe attempted to garner some of the success of the precedent Grand Prix.

The Monte Carlo featured a 2-inch shorter wheelbase and less baroque styling that the Pontiac, and today the styling and proportions remain both sophisticated and graceful. That sophistication stopped at the skin however as underneath was nothing more than a riff on the all-American architecture that had been underpinning wallowing domestics for decades. The Monte Carlo G-body sits on a standard ladder frame to which a serviceable A-arm front suspension and coil-sprung live axle in back. Remember, the personal coupe was more about being seen than being seen carving up corners.

This silver over dog peen red 1972 Monte Carlo will let you be seen no matter what you're doing as it has a feature hat no factory Monte ever had - that being a convertible top. Now before you go thinking that this must be some half-assed job, consider that all the parts to do the job right are available - just from the car's siblings. This isn't that uncommon a conversion, and it looks like the top from an earlier Buick Skylark or sister Chevelle, along with the movable side glass, fits the Monte Carlo's hips just fine.

When down, the top seems to sit a little more proud of the body than it would have on a factory car, but that may just be the pics in the ad. Up or down the car remains as handsome as the cope, and seeing as many Montes of this era came with a landau Calrissian roof, it looks completely natural when raised.

Beneath the top both the metallic silver paint and lurid red vinyl interior look to be in top notch condition, and the car rolls on good looking center-capped steelies, which lend a period correctness to the car. The Grant GT steering wheel does - as is always the case - detracts from the car's quality vibe. Also a little weird is the car's ass-high stance, which goes unexplained in the ad.

The ad does says that this Monte's motivational force is a 350-cid and backing that up is a THM350 Powerglide. The slusher is operated through a too cool for school Frankenstein switch shift handle which is the centerpiece of the full length console. The 350 from the factory put out a minimum of 165-bhp, and was the smallest 8-cylinder offered that year, playing supporting character to the 400 and boat anchor 454. These's no word on what mods this 350 employs, but seeing as it's the most ubiquitous of performance-building motors out there, the world is pretty much your oyster.

And you might need to start cracking open oysters to come up with the asking price for this rare opportunity to go topless in Monte Carlo. That's because the seller is asking a staggering $25,000 for the chance. Now, console cars like this one - without the droptop conversion - seem to command a little over a third that much, although it's really hard to say what the cost would be to undertake the beheading, and do it righteously as this car appears to have been done.

At the end of the day, the car will probably have to be taken - along with its price - at face value, seeing as there just aren't any other convertible ‘72s on the market, or recently sold, that I can find against which it may be compared. What do you think, is this custom Monte Carlo worth its $25,000 asking price? Or, is this a Monte for which that's just too much money?